1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is devices for securing and holding beverage containers in automobiles.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years with the popularity of consumption of soft drinks, especially while traveling in automobiles, it has become widespread to provide various mechanisms and devices to hold and secure beverage containers. This has become especially helpful during those periods of time when the automobile driver or passenger are not actively holding and drinking the beverage. In this respect, various molded plastic cup holders have been devised, consisting generally of cylindrical sockets with an upright and supporting hook adapted to engage over a rail or an automobile door.
Cup holders of this design have been disclosed in the U.S. Patents to Shuford, Design Pat. No. 226,623; to Statz, U.S. Pat. No. 4,606,523; and to Wright, U.S. Pat. No. 4,634,089. In these three patents, a molded plastic cup holder is generally characterized as a hollow cylindrical socket adapted to receive the lower portion of a beverage container with an attached supporting hook to engage an automobile door. Various refinements are added to the various devices, such as using spring back surrounding arms to firmly grip the cup and to provide for variously sized cups.
It is also useful if the cup holder or beverage container holder may also provide means to keep the beverage cold over the period of time that the drink is being consumed or, if the beverage initially were warm, to cool it off and make it's taste more enjoyable. In that respect, Hodgetts, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,653,289 has invented a ventilator-mounted receptacle adapted to encompass the automobile air conditioning vent and to direct air into a almost completely enclosed plenum which houses a container of the beverage. Hodgetts' device includes means for attaching to the automobile vent in order for the receptacle to be hung in position spaced from the vent. The device to Hodgetts appears to adequately accomplish the task set out, however, it requires reworking of the automobile dash in the area proximate the air conditioning vent. In addition, the device of Hodgetts totally encompasses the air conditioner vent and substantially restricts the flow of cooled air from the vent since all cooled air must exit an opening in the device which may be less than five percent of the area of the air conditioning vent. Obviously then, very little cooled air actually is applied to cooling the container.
While there is apparent advantage of utilizing an automobile air conditioning system to cool down the beverage in a container, or to maintain the beverage in a cold state, it would be useful if the holder for the beverage container would be of rather simple construction and would be easy to apply to the vehicle, to use and can be completely removed from in front of the air conditioning vent when not in use.